Towards enhanced early (pre-university) entrepreneurship education in Singapore : evaluating "Yes! Schools", lessons learnt and recommendations for the future.

• Main Authors: Liew, Victor Wei Seow., Moh, Regina Heng Yi., Loo, Sarah Yi Wen.
• Other Authors: Chan Kim Yin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51578
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In 2012, the new Singapore Minister for Entrepreneurship announced plans to work with MOE to enhance the nurturing of entrepreneurs at the pre-university level. It is therefore timely to evaluate the current early (pre-university) entrepreneurship education scene in Singapore, to learn lessons from it and to provide recommendations for the future. In this report, we evaluate the existing Yes! Schools funding programme provided by SPRING Singapore for Singapore schools by surveying students from participating schools and interviewing teachers and training vendors involved in the YES! Schools. A total of seven teachers, and three training providers were interviewed, and 338 pre-university students from seven schools were surveyed. A literature review of the early entrepreneurship education scene in two other countries also provides alternative perspectives to evaluate Singapore’s current efforts. Findings from our study demonstrated that (1) The YES! Schools programme had a positive impact on increasing entrepreneurship inclinations among pre-university students, (2) That factors such as social influences and more “hands on” engagement in nascent entrepreneurial activities following the training were important factors that affected effectiveness of entrepreneurship education for the YES! Schools participants. There were also valuable (3) Lessons learnt from the YES! Schools programme through our interviews with teachers and training vendors, as well as (4) Lessons that Singapore could learn from the experiences of Norway and Hong Kong in early entrepreneurship education policies and systems. We conclude by recommending the following considerations for enhanced early entrepreneurship education in Singapore: It is important to (1) Include more ‘hands-on’, nascent entrepreneurial activities in the early entrepreneurship education process, (2) Leverage on the social influences that affect pre-university students’ career choices/aspirations, and attempt to (3) Infuse entrepreneurship education into the formal general education curriculum.